Covid Annoyances

Is it just me or are things getting under your skin too during this time of our great unpleasantness?

Phone trees, for example.

I make a lot of phone calls for my job. My phone call is very important to them. They instruct me to pay close attention just in case the options have changed since yesterday when I called this company forty times.

I have to press a lot of buttons to speak to a human being.

However, just before I speak with a human being, this company wants me to know that MY HEALTH and SAFETY is their FOREMOST responsibility. This started sometime in March. Before then, I guess I was on my own.

When I finally speak with a human being, the human being says, "MUFWEHNFORPLOB" or something like that. I really can't tell because English is at least the second language of this person and it sounds like I made the call on a short wave radio or tin can with string.

Here is an actual transcript:

Person: '' <short wave radio sounds> ...I have your name?"

Me:  "What?"

Person: "May I have your name?"

Me:  "Beg your pardon. My name is Alan"

Person: "How may I help you, Siegfried?"

Me: "My name is Alan"

Person: "No need for swearing Quincy and I need to remind you we are on a recorded line."

Me: "No, my name is Alan"

Person: "Oh. My apologies Alice, how may I help you".

This goes on all the ding dang day long.

This may come as a total surprise, but a lot of times these people aren't much help at all. But somewhere in the Offshore Phone Center University, they teach this phrase: "Let me double-check that".

I'm sure there was a study published by the Harvard School Of Business which shows that if you say you "double-check" something, your customer will believe anything you say.

While I'm unloading on you, here are some other things that annoy me.

1) TV Shows on Netflix, Amazon Prime, or Premium Cable that use the F-word as the go-to adjective. The classic example is the trailer trash character Ruth in the Netflix show "Ozark" which is filmed here in Georgia. Ruth is played by Julia Garner, a young lady from The Bronx. Garner won an Emmy for her portrayal of Ruth. She should have won it for the most creative use of the really bad cuss word.  Ruth would make the Joe Pesci character in "Goodfellas" blush.   I'm not a prude and I'm a son of a sailor. But I only heard my dad use that word once.  I was 15 when I heard him say it. I was surprised because I didn't think old people knew that word.

2) While I'm at it, the TV show "The Bachelor".  I think this show has been on TV longer than "Meet The Press".  The premise: a single young man is presented with twenty women to woo and he has to go on "dates" with them until he finds the girl he wants to "marry" (and divorce).  As you might guess, there's a lot of crying in this show and the bachelor usually picks the blonde with the biggest breasts.  When people get tired of "The Bachelor", they run "The Bachelorette". The bachelorette is usually the runner-up in "The Bachelor" and by federal law, she must be a brunette that is not, er, blessed as the blonde.  There's not as much crying in "The Bachelorette".  There's just a lot of bowing up with various "bros" saying a certain "bro" isn't playing for the right reasons. Whatever they are.

3) Everything seems to break down Right vs Left, Democrats vs Republicans, etc.  It does get annoying.   Some seem to think that we can stay in a permanent shut down until a vaccine is created, which could take weeks/months/years/centuries and others think it is their inalienable right to sneeze on anybody in a nursing home. Can't we find a middle ground?

4) Another example.  Costco was a subject of a dreaded, dun-dun-dun, TWITTER hashtag because it has asked people to leave their warehouses if they are not wearing masks. Costco says it is worried about the safety of their workers (yeah, right) and their customers.  Actually, Costco is worried about money because if somebody gets sick and they trace back to Costco, the Billboard lawyers come out of the woodwork.  However, Costco is a private company and you have to be a member to go in there so you have to play by their rules. All the Twitter hashtag did was rile up the Trump Haters, because you know this came directly from the President.  The best way to deal with Costco if you don't like their mask rule is, now say it with me, JOIN SAM'S CLUB.  I'm beginning to think we need to put instructions on toilet paper if they ever make it again.

5) Radio commercials for men.  Apparently, the only commercials that are targeted for that underappreciated "Dad" market are for doctors that treat men for a certain condition that only men can have, sorry, ladies, you can't have this condition. Besides, it has never happened before. Okay, maybe once in 'Nam. Oh, where was I? Oh yeah.  They act like this is the only thing men think about in regards to their health. The problem is that it is true. That is all we think about. That's what makes it so annoying.